USPTO Patents Application 10849747

REMARKS

Claims 1-13 are pending in the application.

Response to Claim Rejections Under 35 USC §101:

The Examiner rejected claims 1-13 under 35 USC §101 as directed to non-
statutory subject matter. Claims 1, 8, and 9 have been amended. Claim 1 has been
amended to include an implementation in a computer whereas claim 9 has been amended
to include a computer implemented method. Claim 8 has been amended to include a
computer readable medium. Support for these amendments may be found throughout the
specification including FIGS. 1-2 and the description at pages 1-3 and 9-12. No new
matter has been added. Further, the specification has been amended to include antecedent
basis for the computer readable medium terminology as requested by the Examiner. The
specification is amended to support the terminology that pertains to the implementations
described in the original specification. Applicants further clarify that the use of the term
computer readable medium is not intended to cover nonstatutory subject matter such as
carrier waves. Applicants respectfully submit that the amendments overcome the
rejection.

Claim Rejections Under 35 USC §103

Claim 1 is currently rejected by the Examiner under 35 USC § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Tang in view of Keys.

The Examiner has rejected claim 1, indicating that Tang teaches all of the
elements of claim 1 save for the additional driver means interposed between the operating
system and the installed driver, where the additional driver means is configured to
interface directly with at least the operating system. The Examiner further indicates that
Keys supplies this missing element and that it would have been obvious to make the
combination, one of ordinary skill in the relevant arts being motivated to provide the
ability to intercept, inspect, and modify the requests between client drivers and the bus
driver.

Applicants respectfully disagree with the Examiners conclusions as to

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unpatentability for at least the following reasons.

Neither Tang nor Keys nor the combination of them teaches or suggests providing
a driving system having additional driver means interposed between an Operating System
and a legacy driver and the driving system configured for driving the original
functionality provided by the first driver and enabling additional functionality beyond
that provided by the first driver, as required by claim 1 .

Tang's teachings are instead limited to modifications at the Operating System
(OS) level. In more detail, Tang teaches extending the OS functionality to enable
additional functionality of the hardware. See, for example, FIG. 125, and col. 35, line 64,
where Tang discloses that "Direct DSP extends Direct X at the API level. As illustrated
in FIG. 125, the OS layer is modified by added functionality in the form of Direct DSP
(block 1810). The OS level further determines whether the application requires the
original functionality (yes path in block 250 vs. the extended functionality ("no" path).

Further, claim 1 requires that the "further hardware device" have functionality
differing from said predetermined functionality and unsupported by said operating
system . As a result of the modifications at the API level described above, Tang's
operating sytem supports the additional functionality.

Keys ( A Method and Driver for Detecting Glitches in Audio Playback) teaches a
driver interposed between the Operating System and the legacy driver but doesn't teach
or suggest a device driving system enabling operation of at least one further hardware
device of functionality differing from said predetermined functionality. In further detail,
the filter driver in Keys merely monitors the data stream without modifying it. It
identifies and records information about signals, or lack of signals (faults), flowing
through the driver to the USB device, hence it is not a driver which enables an additional
previously unsupported hardware device. That is, it makes a record of faults and sends
the record of faults to the user. (See paragraphs 0017 - 0020). Since Keys fails to teach
modification of the data stream, there is no teaching or suggestion that the driver 116
should function to enable operation different from the predetermined functionality.

As noted above, applicants believe that the combination fails to teach or suggest
all of the limitations of claim 1. Further, applicants respectfully submit that one of skill in

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the art would not be motivated to combine the prior art references. Tang includes an
operating system already modified to support additional functionality. The interposed
filter driver 1 16 in Keys (A Method and Driver for Detecting Glitches in Audio
Playback) teaches an interposed driver but one configured for monitoring glitches, not
one capable of modifying data. Hence, there would be no motivation to combine the two
references to generate a driver configured to support a previously unsupported hardware
device. Even if combined, there would be no impetus to move the extended functionality
from the operating system to the filter driver that merely plays a fault detection and
reporting function.

For similar reasons, Tang and Keys fail to teach or suggest the limitations of
independent claims 8 and 9. That is, since Tang teaches that the additional functionality is
provided in the operating system modifications, they fail to teach that the supplemental
device driver provides functionality not envisaged by the operating system provider.

For the reasons cited above, applicants submit that the claims, as amended, are
allowable since they describe structure or methods that are distinguishable over the prior
art. That is, Tang in combination with Keys fails to teach or suggest all of the elements of
claims 1,8, and 9. Applicants further submit that the dependant claims are allowable at
least due to their dependencies from an allowable base claim. The dependant claims have
additional limitations distinguishable from the art of record. In light of the above
dependencies, applicants submit that further arguments as to the dependant claims are not
necessary at this time.

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Conclusion

Accordingly, it is submitted that all issues in the Non Final Office Action have
been addressed, and withdrawal of the rejections is respectfully requested. Applicants
believe that this application is in condition for allowance, and respectfully request a
prompt passage to issuance. If the Examiner believes that a telephone conference would
expedite the prosecution of this application, he is invited to contact the Applicants'
undersigned attorney at the telephone number set out below.

Applicants hereby petition for any necessary extensions of time for the filing of
this paper under the provisions of 37 CFR 1.136. The director is hereby authorized to
charge any appropriate fees under 37 CFR 1.17(a)(1) that may be required for a one
month extension of time for the filing of this paper to Deposit Account No. 503302.

Respectfully submitted,
Dated: October 14, 2008 /russell swerdon/

Russell N. Swerdon
Registration No. 36,943

Creative Labs, Inc.
1901 McCarthy Boulevard
Milpitas, CA 95035
Phone: 408-428-6600

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